


I wear the chain I forged in life

by Port_in_a_Storm



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Brief character death but not really, Emotional, Gen, Inspired by A Christmas Carol, M/M, Robert vows to change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 16:25:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9080329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Port_in_a_Storm/pseuds/Port_in_a_Storm
Summary: Christmas 2015. Three ghosts from Robert's past visit him with lessons and a warning.
Inspired by A Christmas Carol





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Robron101](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Robron101/gifts).



> MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!! I hope you all had the most amazing day! This fic was written for the lovely Geena (Robron101), who prompted a fic (with a very detailed series of events!) inspired by A Christmas Carol. I hope you all enjoy :)

Christmas 2015

It was hard to believe that just a few months ago he'd had everything that his Dad wanted for him and then some. He had the wife, the readymade family, the business, the money, the status, the Big House. Jack wouldn't have liked that: Robert strutting around showing his wealth like a peacock showing off its plumage, but after everything he had been through to get there, that was something Robert wanted.

It all changed with Aaron.

Robert shook his head and downed the rest of the beer he had found in Adam's fridge. The television was on, but Robert had long since lost interest in it. Now it was just on for background noise because, as much as he hated to admit it, he was _lonely_. 

_'Don't stay here on your own, Rob,' Vic had told him. 'Come with us.'_

_'What, to Cain's? Oh yeah, we can all have a happy bloody Christmas can't we, eh? What're we gonna do, Vic, play charades? Taboo? Or are you gonna spend the night telling me to move from room to room because Andy's here and you just want a quiet Christmas? If you want quiet, sis, I'll stay here.'_

_'You're being stubborn and difficult!' Victoria had yelled. 'I want you to spend Christmas with us - with your_ family _but you'd rather just sit here like a loser?'_

_The words had hurt, and Victoria knew they'd hurt. It wasn't twenty seconds later that she had hugged him tight, and whispered into his chest, 'Please come with us, Robert.'_

_'No,' he said, finally and firmly. 'I'll just bring everyone down, Vic. I'd rather just stay here.'_

Victoria probably hated him now. Robert hated himself for upsetting her, but he just couldn't stomach the thought of sitting around the table with Andy that day. Too much had happened, and although he would never dream of shopping Andy to the police, things were far from forgive and forget. 

It was when the second advert he'd seen for Sainsbury's rolled around and Robert started to well up and identify with the bloody cat who somehow managed to ruin everything it touched and wreck Christmas, that Robert turned off the television. Enough really was enough. The room was plunged into silence and darkness. The only light had come from the screen. Vic had put on the Christmas tree lights, the ones that Adam was so pleased with, and when they'd left, Robert had promptly unplugged them. Christmas could go jump off a bridge this year as far as he was concerned. 

He sat for a moment in silence. His hand loosened its grip on the empty can of beer and it dropped to the floor. Robert didn't flinch. He heard the church bell ring and counted the strikes. Eleven. Eleven o clock and here he was, alone on Christmas night. 

His mind wandered back to Christmases as a child, when he had a mother and a brother that he could say with absolutely certainty loved him. Before he realised he liked boys as well, and back when he was still the reason for Jack's smile. He shook himself. 

'Bed, I think,' he said. He stumbled to his feet and wobbled a little. He didn't think he'd drunk that much. Adam wouldn't be impressed with him for drinking all of his beer (when was he ever impressed with him?), but Robert would face that wave of hell in the morning.

He staggered his way upstairs and fought his way into his pyjamas. He collapsed on the bed and closed his eyes. Happy Christmas indeed.

****

He was woken an hour later by a chill in the air. Not unusual for winter in the North of the country, but this chill seeped through to his bones, permeating skin, blood, organs. He woke instantly. Looking around his room, he jumped when he saw a silloheutted figure by the window. 

'Vic?' he said tentatively. He put a hand to his rapidly beating heart. 'What are you doing?' The figure didn't answer—didn't say a word. He swallowed. 'Vic? Come on, it's just gettin' creepy now.'

Moonlight filtered in from between the curtains, and Robert managed to get a look at the face. His heart stuttered in his chest for a second. He had seen that face only in photos. He was young, too young to remember her, but he always wanted to find any photos he could of her because according to most of the older villagers, he looked so much like her.

'Pat?' he whispered. The woman's mouth curled up just a little in a smile. Robert caught his breath: there was the smile he caught in the mirror sometimes; the smile he saw in photos of himself. His smile was her smile. 'Mum?' he asked, quieter.

His mother –except it couldn't be his mother because she (both of them, actually) was dead, and how much did he drink?—crossed the room. Robert shuffled back on his bed, trying to keep as far away from the apparition (the very representation of his dwindling sanity) as he could. The woman stopped.

'Don't be afraid,' she said. Her voice was strongly Yorkshire. The Dales might have been created from her voice alone. 'Don't be afraid, love.'

'Wh--what are you?'

Her eyes were sad (that's what comes of dying before your time, he supposed) as she sat on the edge of his bed. Her body didn’t make any indentation in the mattress. He felt her presence like something warm and cold at once: as if one side of him faced the fire whilst the other was encased in ice. 

‘You know me, love,’ she said.

He shook his head. ‘No. No, you’re not—you’re dead.’

Pat smiled, but even that was sad. She made a movement, her hand stretching out as if to cup his face. He shrunk back, and immediately felt terrible. If this was a dream it felt all too real.

‘What—why are you here?’

‘I’m here to show you your Christmases past,’ she said.

Despite himself, Robert felt a smirk growing on his face. ‘Christmases past?’ he said. ‘Did I step into a Christmas carol?’

An answering smile played around her thin lips as well, though it was soon gone. She held out her hand. ‘Come with me, love. Let me show you.’

He hesitated. Of course he did: this was insane in every way.

‘Robert,’ she said. ‘Come with me.’

He felt compelled, as if his hand wasn’t his own. He saw it take hers, even though his mind was screaming at him not to. If this was a dream then nothing would happen to him, but he was afraid what it meant for his sanity that he was going along with it. He took her hand and she pulled him out of the bed. Immediately, a new room materialised in front of him.

He looked around, recognising the room even though he hadn’t seen it in years, even though the scene in front of him was decades old.

‘That’s me,’ he whispered. A young Robert—ten years old—sat alone at the table, but he was smiling. He kept looking at the doorway of the kitchen, swinging his legs and grinning. 

‘Come on then!’ he yelled. His voice sounded far away. Robert’s head throbbed.

Then came the sound of Jack’s laugh. ‘Alright, calm down,’ he said. ‘Your Mum’s just taking the potatoes out of the oven. Where’s your brother and sister?’ As if their titles were a summons, Victoria and Andy ran into the room. They both wore the brightest smiles, and Andy sat next to Robert, the two of them immediately starting to talk and laugh together whilst Jack crouched next to Vic and asked her if she liked her presents.

‘Clear a space, Jack.’

The tears were automatic. ‘Mum,’ Robert whispered. He stepped forward, inching closer to the image of Sarah, bearing a dishful of potatoes. He tasted salt on his lips. He stretched out a hand, but it went right through her. He looked at Pat, who was staring at him in complete sadness.

‘You can’t touch them,’ she said. ‘Do you remember this?’ 

‘Yeah. It must have been, what, the first Christmas that Andy spent with us.’

Pat nodded. ‘Look at the two of you,’ she said. ‘Laughing, joking. Like proper brothers.’

Robert tasted bitterness in the back of his throat. He missed Andy, of course he did. But they had hurt each other so much over the years. Seeing them like this didn’t make him feel that he needed to fix it; he just felt… bitter… hurt. But it was as though all of their bridges had been burned. He looked away, back to the scene playing out. The food had been placed on the table and Jack was carving up the turkey. There was chatter going on all the while, such a far cry from the family dinner he, Andy, Vic and Diane had shared December last year. He felt Pat’s eyes on him, but didn’t say anything. After a moment more, she sighed. 

‘We’re going somewhere a little darker, love,’ she said. 

Things shifted. Or rather, Robert felt as though _he_ shifted, as if something were pulling at him, pulling at his navel, at the hand which touched his birth mother’s. It was over in the blink of an eye, but the sensation seemed to linger. They were outside. There was a low fog down, but Robert instantly recognised the city: London. He also knew exactly where they were and when. He looked around and saw himself. Ninteen years old, alone, scared. A younger Robert huddled in a doorway, two jackets pulled around himself, though he shivered with the cold. Tears were in his eyes. Robert looked away.

‘You were so alone,’ Pat said. ‘I wanted to visit you then, wanted so much to tell you it would be alright, that in a few weeks you’d find a job, you’d find a home.’

‘Why didn’t you then?’ Robert said. He hadn’t meant to sound as harsh as he did. 

‘Would you have let me in?’ she asked.

Robert couldn’t answer. No. No, he wouldn’t have. He had closed himself off; had distanced himself to anyone or anything from his old life.

‘I’d been planning on leaving anyway,’ he said quietly. His eyes were back on the younger Robert, who was wiping his eyes pitifully. ‘I wanted to leave that village. But not the way it happened.’

‘I know, love.’

‘No, you don’t. Dad hated me, Mum was dead—you both were—Andy couldn’t stand the sight of me. I wanted to be alone, wanted to prove that I could achieve something away from that farm, away from _them_.’ He shook his head. ‘But look at me. Shivering, crying. Pathetic.’ His throat closed with emotion and he gasped in a breath. ‘I missed them,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t want to, but I did. I remember seeing the lights in the shops, people shopping for presents, and I would’ve—I would’ve given _anything_ to just see them, to know that they still felt something for me, to know that they missed me as much as I missed them.’

Pat took his hand again and Robert squeezed it. Even if this was just a dream, something that his drunken and self-pitying mind dredged up, he was glad for the comfort of his mother. He felt the shift in his navel again, and he closed his eyes. He heard the difference in the setting before he saw it. A pub, him outside it, his voice and Vic’s, him begging her not to give up on him. He opened his eyes and saw them. Vic looked so upset and so angry with him. Even now, knowing that he had a place in his sister’s heart as well as her home, he flinched. She had been the only person he’d had—outside of Chrissie—when he came back to the village. To have her turn her back on him felt like the final blow. But then there was Aaron, and he was guiding Robert away from the pub, and he was telling Robert that ‘At least you tried,’ and Robert felt a warmth in his heart.

‘That was the moment,’ he told Pat. ‘Right then, when I realised that I was falling in love with him. Because he didn’t turn his back on me. Because he knew that I’d messed up, and he wasn’t letting me off, but he knew I was trying. Stupid isn’t it? I wasn’t meant to fall in love with him.’

‘We can’t help who we fall in love with, sweetheart,’ Pat said. They watched Aaron and Robert from last year go through the back door of the pub, watched them emerge again minutes later, and then they drove off. A lay-by. That was where they’d had sex that day. Something so cheap and quick, yet it meant so much to Robert at the time. Still did, in fact.

‘Family,’ Pat sighed. ‘It’s important, Robert.’

Robert laughed without mirth and shook his head. ‘They turned their backs on me,’ he said. ‘I meant nothing to them.’

‘That’s not true and you know it,’ she argued. Her eyes glinted, and Robert saw his own features reflected in hers. ‘You only get one family, love. They need to try, of course they do. But so do you.’

He looked away, but he heard the truth in her words. Another pull on his hand and navel, and then they were back in Vic’s house again, and Robert was alone. He shook himself and got back into bed, ready for this dream to be over. It had hurt more than he could ever admit in the cold light of day, so he admitted it now: he missed Aaron. He missed Andy, he missed his Dad. He wished he had done better; had done _more_. It was all well and good feeling like the injured party, but he did hear the truth in his mother’s words: Robert was also responsible, and he knew that, of course he did. He sighed, looked at the ceiling, and closed his eyes.

He woke again when he felt another chill in the room; slightly different to the first: slightly harsher, but there was still a warmth lingering there somewhere. Robert rubbed his eyes and looked around. 

‘Robert.’

He froze. No. No, not him, not tonight, not when he was still fragile from what Pat had showed him. He felt the gaze of his father on him, a gaze that was filled with disappointment, filled with hurt and anger and frustration.

‘Robert.’ Softer this time. He shook his head. 

‘When will this nightmare end?’ he whispered. He did eventually meet his Dad’s eyes, though he couldn’t hold the stare for long. He swallowed. ‘Why are you here?’

‘Come with me.’

Robert shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Come with me, son.’

And even though Robert had thought himself rebellious, had thought himself defiant to his father’s wishes, he wasn’t. Not really. He held out his hand, but still didn’t meet Jack’s eyes. His father—as strong as Robert remembered—dragged him out of bed, and then things shifted again.

They were at Butler’s. Victoria, Adam, Andy, Cain, Moira. A whole host of others sat around the living room, a tree in the corner, presents around it, lights on and twinkling merrily. The sound of laughter and talk and Christmas music playing softly. 

‘What’s this?’ Robert asked.

‘This,’ Jack said. ‘Is happening now. Everyone’s here. Andy, Vic.’ His voice was soft when he said the name of his preferred children, and Robert felt something distressing and anxious shift in him. 

‘Another Christmas present!’ Adam cheered. He was looking at his watch as if with each hour they’d open another present. A beer was in one hand, and he held Vic with the other. Robert would never say it, but Adam was good for Vic: he was kind, solid, steady; everything that his little sister needed. 

There was excitement on everyone’s faces, and Robert smiled. They tore into a present each, and through the sound of ripping paper, Robert heard Vic softly say, ‘I wish Rob were here. I hate the thought of him being alone at Christmas.’

Adam smiled sadly and pressed a kiss to Vic’s hair, but on her other side, Andy snorted. ‘He’d only have ruined it somehow. He always does.’

Vic looked hurt and angry. Robert closed his eyes and sadness washed over him. ‘Take me back,’ he said.

‘We still have more stops to make,’ Jack said. Without asking him, he took hold of Robert’s hand and the world shifted again.

This time, the scene was far more calm. But so calm that it felt almost dreary. He recognised the living room: neutral colours and expensive furniture, logs thrown on the fire and a modestly decorated tree in the corner. Robert heard the muted notes of an instrumental Christmas record. He could almost smell the port and the red wine that Lawrence and Chrissie sipped on. They were laughing and talking, all three of them looking content. 

‘I don’t—why did you bring me here?’ He felt out of place here, he decided. It wasn’t somewhere he wanted to be anymore; he had moved on from that life, from the things that the Whites provided for him.

‘Always wanted this life, didn’t you?’ Jack said. ‘I saw you every time we drove here to drop off something for the Kings: the way you looked at the house, the grounds. You wanted this ever since then, didn’t you?’

There was scorn in his voice, but there was also something else there: a kind of desperation for Robert to tell Jack differently. And he didn’t say it to please his father, but because it was true. He said ‘Not anymore. There’s more important things to me now.’

Jack nodded, and approval shone out of his every pore. The one time he managed to please his father, and it was in his subconscious mind. ‘Good,’ Jack said. ‘Because they don’t need you. None of them misses you.’

And it didn’t hurt. 

Another shift. This time, Robert was overwhelmed by _sound_. Cheering, laughing, loud music. The room was chaos, but it was the good kind of chaos; the kind that Robert had seen in glimpses in the Woolpack. They were at Wishing Well, and the Dingles were celebrating.

Robert immediately looked around, and he found Aaron. He was smiling and chatting to his Mum, wearing the green jumper that Robert loved. He caught himself dragging his eyes over Aaron’s figure, and he checked to see if his Dad had noticed.

‘Do you think I don’t know about the two of you?’ he said. His voice didn’t betray any kind of emotion. ‘I don’t like that you started as an affair. But you care about him, don’t you?’

‘More than anything.’ The words didn’t surprise Robert. What did surprise him was who he said it to. The only time he had shown his desire for boys as well as girls, Jack had used his fists to show him just how abhorrent he had found it. Jack’s eyes were accepting, but Robert didn’t read too much into it: this was still a dream at best, his crazed mind at worst. He nodded at Aaron. ‘He doesn’t need me either. Take me back,’ he said. That hurt. That hurt more than Andy bad-mouthing him, certainly more than the Whites moving on. 

But Jack didn’t take him back. Instead he nodded at the door and a moment later, there was a knock on it. Lisa answered it, and beckoned in the man from the cold. Gordon Livesy. Robert had seen the man around the village; it was impossible not to. Anyone new in the village didn’t go unnoticed. Robert had been indifferent to him, and only took the slightest notice because he knew he was Aaron’s biological father. 

His eyes found Aaron again, ready to see him get up to greet the older man. Instead, Aaron’s eyes widened and his entire face fell. His entire demeanour changed and stiffened. It was instinctual for Robert to want to be near his former lover, to offer him comfort, and he approached him.

‘What is he doing here?’ Aaron hissed at Chas.

‘I invited him,’ she said. ‘He’s your dad.’

Aaron shook his head, and downed the rest of his beer in one gulp, opening another before he had even swallowed. 

‘Aaron,’ Robert whispered. Something was wrong. Chas had to have been blind to see it. He stretched out a hand to touch the younger man’s shoulder, but Jack’s hand grabbed his wrist.

‘It’s time to go,’ he said.

‘No.’ Robert tried to wrestle himself free of Jack’s grip, but couldn’t. ‘No, I can’t—Aaron.’

A blink of an eye and they were back in Robert’s room. ‘Why? Why did you take me there? What was going on?’

‘There’s always going to be someone who needs you, Robert,’ Jack said. It made Robert pause. ‘There’s always going to be someone who wants you around; you just need to find who they are and surround yourself with them.’ He guided Robert back to the bed, and waited until his son had got back under the covers. Robert half wanted him to stay, wanted to feel the presence of his father the way he used to when he was young: a constant, strong presence. But Jack disappeared, and Robert was left with the image of Aaron downing one beer after another. He wanted desperately suddenly to go him, but before the thought had even been brought to the front of his mind, he was asleep.

This time, he was awoken by a touch to the shoulder, and he thought that maybe the series of strange dreams were over. His room was warm. He opened his eyes, and tears immediately came to them.

‘Mum.’

‘Hello, sweetheart.’

Robert sat up and looked in awe at his mother, at the woman who had understood him, the one that he had pinned all of his hopes on: if his mother had found him with the lad from the farm, if his mother had been alive when Max died, if his mother had been around when he met Aaron, if if if. Her hand cupped his cheek, and he felt the warmth of her skin, the comfort of her touch. The tears fell easily.

‘I’m going to take you to see something. Come with me.’

Robert didn’t hesitate. He took his Mum’s hand and got out of bed. He didn’t look away from her until the scene had shifted and settled.

It was an unfamiliar flat. Dark, the only light coming from the television which the only occupant of the flat was sitting in front of. No Christmas lights or decorations, no presents or music. Just a bitter lonely man. Robert knew. Of course he knew. ‘This is me, isn’t it?’

Before Sarah could answer, the phone rang. Robert saw the ID as ‘Victoria’, but future Robert didn’t answer. He was drunk, he was a mess. There was a microwave meal on the coffee table, and an empty bottle of vodka. Robert turned the phone off and threw it across the room. He sighed and unsteadily raised his glass of alcohol. ‘Merry flippin’ Christmas,’ he sneered. He downed the drink, and the glass fell from his hand before he slumped into the chair, passed out.

As if from far away, Robert heard Vic’s voice. ‘At least I tried,’ she said. She didn’t sound sad though, she sounded disgusted. Robert flinched. He was glad he couldn’t see her. 

‘I don’t know why you even bothered, Babe,’ came Adam’s voice. ‘Andy was right you know, he ruins everything. Twenty years didn’t change him, he’s not gonna change now.’

‘You’re right,’ Vic sighed. ‘He’s a waste of time. Dunno why I bother. I’d rather be shot of him.’ Robert flinched. He watched future him, watched his mouth drop open, saw his chest rise and fall sluggishly, snores falling from his open mouth.

Adam was yelling now. ‘I told you last year didn’t I? Eh? When he hurt you then as well. Always disappointin’ you! He’s never done anything else! Can’t even be bothered to answer his flippin’ phone! I’m glad Aaron died before Robert could ruin his life even more than he already did!’

That was enough to bring Robert out of his self-pity. 

‘What?’ He turned to his Mum, who was looking at him with such sympathy that it ached. ‘No! Mum, please… no. Not Aaron.’

Sarah wiped away his tears, her fingertips soft on his face. ‘Oh, love.’

‘What happened to him?’ he begged. ‘Please, Mum. What happened to him?’

He wasn’t hysterical, not yet. Because he almost tried to convince himself that maybe Adam had got it wrong, maybe his facts were messed up. ‘Please,’ he said again. 

Sarah nodded. ‘Okay. Okay.’

They were back in Emmerdale. In the graveyard. Robert felt a cold weight in his stomach. He began to shake. ‘He died in the scrapyard,’ Sarah said. ‘He had cut himself, passed out, and no one was there to save him, Robert. He died alone.’

‘AARON LIVESY  
5 JANUARY 1992 – 19 JANUARY 2016’

His legs gave way. He sank to his knees. He couldn’t wrench his eyes from the headstone, from the name etched into it, from every single wish and hope and dream he had had falling apart.

Robert had felt heartache before. He had felt pain, he had felt anguish, he had felt loss, he had felt utterly and completely hopeless. But this. This was worse than anything his nightmares could conjure, worse than any memory that his mind presented to him with all the dullness and pain of a past that cannot be salvaged. This…

This was _despair_. This was misery, this was giving up hope, this was a goodbye more final and more terrible than any other.

He was screaming, mouth open and pleading. He was gasping and heaving between each anguished sob. ‘ _NO!_ Take me back! Please, god, take me back!’ But he was alone, no one to return him to his room, and to the present where Aaron was alive and whole. His voice left him in one anguished keen and then—

And then he woke up. Shaking, sweating. In Victoria’s home, the television still on, the clock striking twelve. Robert almost laughed in relief. It had been a dream. It had been a _nightmare_. But it was over, and he was still in Emmerdale, and Aaron was still alive. The last strike of the church clock rung through the village. Robert leapt from his seat, suddenly not wanting to be alone, not wanting to be isolated from those he held so dearly to him. He splashed water on his face, forcing himself to wake up. He rushed out the door, intent on going to Butler’s, not caring if he had to run all the way there, just knowing he needed to be with his family, even if half of them didn’t want to see him or even be near him.

He stumbled, though, when he saw Aaron walking through the village. The young man looked agitated, looked on edge. But alive. So very alive. Without even thinking about it, he ran across the street, Aaron looking up, startled at the sound of footsteps in the otherwise quiet village. He looked away when he saw it was Robert, but the older man wasn’t deterred; he still saw the headstone in his mind, still imagined Aaron alone and in pain at the scrapyard. 

‘Merry Christmas,’ he said.

Aaron looked at him, but didn’t answer. 

Robert watched the man walk away. He’d change. He’d change for himself, for Vic’s happiness, for Aaron’s future. He loved Aaron. He knew that. Knew it with every fibre of his being. One day, he promised himself, he’d belong to Aaron; one day he’d be proud and happy to call Aaron his. It would take a lot of work, but he’d do it. 

_Surround yourself with people who need you._

The truth was that he needed Aaron. He needed Vic, and he needed Andy. He needed a family and he needed someone to love him; he needed someone to love. 

‘I’ll be better,’ he promised himself. ‘I’ll change, and keep on changing.’ His eyes didn’t leave Aaron, the figure of the younger man walking away, back to the pub. ‘For you.’

**** 

Christmas 2016

Aaron was sitting with the dog. Charity was wearing a bloody stupid balloon antler hat thing. Marlon and Sam were still talking about the peacock, Chas and Robert sharing a secret smile at _‘peacock robber’_ , Zak was sitting in his chair, Lisa laughing at something he had said and handing him another drink. Cain and Belle were talking quietly, Liv was entertaining Samson, Kyle and Noah. Later, he and Aaron would go and see Diane and Vic and Adam briefly before they finally headed home to their warm bed and wrap themselves around each other, seeing out their first Christmas together in the best way they knew how.

Robert felt… he felt content.

As he sat there and ruffled the head of the mangy Dingle dog and looked at Aaron, leaned closer to him; as he was surrounded by people who tolerated or liked him in different ways, he felt content. It was the first time since he was ten years old that he felt this, surrounded by family, surrounded by love. He smiled at Aaron. He had given Robert this: when he had let Robert back into his life, he had also opened the door to a whole host of Dingles that Robert would be proud to call family one day. 

Christmas music blared over the speakers, the Dingles chatted and laughed and ate and drank, and Robert sat amidst it all. He smiled softly at Aaron.

‘You alright?’ Aaron said.

Robert nodded. ‘Yeah. Why?’

‘You’re staring.’ 

‘I had this weird dream last Christmas,’ he said.

Aaron blinked at the sudden change of topic. ‘Yeah? What was it?’

He didn’t need to dwell on that, though. Robert had found those that mattered to him: Aaron, Liv, Vic, Chas even, and maybe one day the rest of the Dingles. He shook his head. ‘Never mind. It doesn’t matter anymore.’

Aaron raised an eyebrow, though he was still smiling. ‘Soft lad,’ he murmured. His cheeks were red, tinted by drink and happiness. Robert wanted to kiss him, and realised with a pang of excitement that he _could_ ; that he was _encouraged_ to kiss Aaron now. He did so, the kiss soft and sweet.

**Author's Note:**

> Come have a nosy on tumblr!: [Port in a Storm](http://www.portinastorm.tumblr.com)
> 
> The title is a quote from 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens


End file.
